Menu

The day flickr died: May 20, 2013 (updated)

This morning I opened my flickr page and my first thought was that I did something wrong. After a while, it became clear to me that they completely changed the page design. I am shocked and disappointed at the same time. The beauty of the photos is gone. flickr was clean, easy and simple to use. Over the years, flickr has grown into a huge community of professional and avid hobby photographers. Photos were well organized and had enough room to get the right presentation. I was browsing for hours through other people’s photo sets and collections. The new design is just an unorganized flood of images without any meaning.

Second, what I don’t like is their new account policy- flickr cancelled the “pro account”. Before, a “pro account” had unlimited space for $24.99 per year. 1TB space is now available for every user, but with advertisements. The new account is called “ad-free” and will remove advertisements, for $49.99 per year. Why should flickr pro-users pay more money for less space? Obviously flickr doesn’t need the pro-users anymore. Another account is called “Doublr” that doubles the available space from 1TB to 2TB for $499.-. $499.-, can you believe it? Well, I have learned once more, that in the end everything is just about making money, the faster the better. How stupid and disappointing.

“There’s no such thing as Flickr Pro today because with so many people taking photographs there’s really no such thing as professional photographers anymore,” Mayer said (though she acknowledged that there are “different skill levels”).” — Yahoo CEO, Marissa Mayer